India's Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has granted permissions to four telecom service providers (TSP) for conducting 5G network trials, and Samsung along with a few other 5G technology providers will be involved in the process.
The TSPs who have gained permission for 5G trial runs from the Department of Telecommunications are: Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio, Vodafone, and MTNL. According to the official press release, these TSPs will be working together with 5G tech providers Ericsson, Nokia, C-DOT, and of course Samsung.
Where are the Chinese 5G network suppliers?
Aside from the four aforementioned 5G providers, the TSPs will also be allowed to conduct 5G trials using their own in-house technologies, if applicable. Other than that, the press release makes no mention of any other global 5G players.
In other words, neither Huawei nor ZTE will have any involvement in these 5G trial runs, which means that they've lost a huge opportunity to improve their status in the global 5G equipment market.
The trial period will last for six months. India's Department of Telecommunications specifies that TSPs have to conduct 5G trials in both rural and semi-urban areas in order to proliferate the technology nation-wide.
In addition, DoT encourages TSPs to conduct trials for 5G as well as 5Gi technology. 5Gi is a standard that was developed by India's TSDSI. It was tested for 3 years before gaining approval from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) last year. 5Gi promises improved coverage and it could become vital for bringing 5G to rural areas is a cost-effective manner.
